A World Transformed Excerpt: The Pilgrimage of Life

My book, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps, is releasing in April! Hope you enjoy this excerpt. It’s about one of my favorite sites on the Hereford Map (ca. 1300)–the Exodus route in medieval Asia.

Of all journeys illustrated on the Hereford Map, the Exodus is the only one marked in ink. You can see, in the picture below, that the mapmaker(s) drew a line connecting the relevant sites in this journey, similar to the highlighted line that marks a route on a GPS today. This line invites us to follow the Israelites’ path from beginning to end, perhaps even to walk it with our finger. It provides our first clue that the Exodus is meant to guide us on our own journey through the world.

Exodus
Exodus route, detail from the Hereford Map (ca. 1300). Photograph courtesy of Groningen University Library.

The Israelites’ route begins in Ramses, close to the pyramids or, as the map calls them, the “granaries of Joseph” (lower right). It then crosses the Red Sea, which has been miraculously parted. Following along, we see Moses receiving the tablets of the law atop Mt. Sinai and the Israelites worshiping the golden calf below. The path then takes several loops and turns before passing the Dead Sea, in which is visible the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot’s wife stands nearby, turned to a pillar of salt as she glances back at the destroyed cities. Finally, the Israelites cross the Jordan River and arrive in Jericho (lower left).

As we follow this extraordinary route, we get more than a lesson in Old Testament geography. We meet a surprising sight and receive a gift of grace. The clue to this surprise is found in the giant bird perched alongside the Exodus route—a bird as large as Mt. Sinai itself. This bird is the phoenix. According to medieval lore, only one phoenix existed at a time. Every five hundred years, it built a nest of spices and flapped its wings until it burst into flames. Another phoenix rose from the ashes to repeat the cycle.

Because of its powers of regeneration, medieval writers viewed the phoenix as a symbol of the resurrection. Its presence along the Exodus route deepens the meaning of this Old Testament event. The phoenix becomes an ingenious way to show, in pictorial form, the foreshadowing of which Paul speaks in his letter to the Corinthians:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Cor 10: 1–4)

Paul describes the Israelites’ journey as a baptism into Jesus Christ. It is one of the many instances in which Old Testament events prefigure the coming of the savior. The phoenix, which looks innocuous yet resonates with resurrection, recalls Paul’s interpretation of the Exodus. It turns the Israelites’ trek into a journey that every Christian takes—our walk to salvation in Christ.

Each of us walks this walk. From the moment God calls us out of captivity to the day we stand before his throne, we journey through the wilderness of this world. The Israelites walked to Jericho, but we are on our way to Jerusalem, at the center of the map. With every step we take, we get closer and closer to the home God has prepared for us.

 Watch this website for news on the release of A World Transformed!

 

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